When it gave Kidlat Tahimik's BALIKBAYAN #1 – MEMORIES OF OVERDEVELOPMENT REDUX III (RP 2015, 6. & 20.3.) the Caligari Award at last year's Berlinale, the jury described the film as "a dazzling comet of "Third Cinema" that, after almost 40 years of production time, had finally exploded into the present." In it, Kidlat Tahimik travels to the 16th century, slipping into the role of Enrique de Malacca, Ferdinand Magellan's slave, and suggesting that it is not the Portuguese explorer who first circumnavigated the globe but his servant, whose story was promptly forgotten. BALIKBAYAN #1 is also about the adventure of the filmmaker himself trying to make a film that he had already declared an "eternal work in progress" in 1982. The film closes yet another circle in Berlin. The Forum was first struck by "Silent Lightning" (the translation of the pseudonym Kidlat Tahimik) from the Philippines almost 40 years ago. Tahimik's debut PERFUMED NIGHTMARE (RP/F/FRG 1977, 1. & 15.3.) tells the magnificent story of a Philippine jeepney driver who dreams of flying to the moon but discovers on a trip to Europe that he has been pursuing the wrong models. It became a cult film of postcolonial cinema and a vehicle which made Tahimik travel around the world, and enabled him to make more films.

However, though he is considered a pioneer of Filipino cinema, his other films are known even to experts merely as rumors. We wanted to bridge this reception gap with "Cosmos and Nightmare," the first complete retrospective of Kidlat Tahimik's work. It presents an unrelenting rebel of cinema, who has created a dazzling, unique oeuvre without following conventional paths of production. The filmmaker, whose post-screening appearances have become legendary, will be present from 1st to 12th March. To create a context for this cinematographic cosmopolitan's work, the program will be enriched by a mini-retrospective of Philippine cinema, as well as by a selection of international films with which Tahimik's films can be associated. Some of the Philippine classics have never been screened in Germany. Most of them will be shown in recently restored versions. <link kidlattahimik.de external-link-new-window "Opens external link in new window”>http://kidlattahimik.de/</link>

Ethereal, cool, enchantingly beautiful, aloof – by the beginning of the 1960s, after four years and just as many films with her partner of the time, the director Michelangelo Antonioni, Monica Vitti had established herself as an outstanding actress and become the epitome of the opaque "silent diva". She suppressed this image insistently during the second half of her career: In a series of famous Italian comedies, she presented a very different Monica Vitti: witty, spirited, full of life. We pay homage to the great Italian actress with eight films from the 1960s to the 1980s.

This month, our film history series will examine the many and varied links between cinema and theater. From the very start, the relationship between cinema and theater vacillated between delimitation – and thus the reinforcement of an own aesthetic – and inspiration and approximation. Early cinema stood in (also economic) competition with the traditional medium of theater. Although theater was the first aesthetic point of reference for cinema, it soon detached itself from it so as to come upon a unique cinematic form and visual language. Even if cinema has long emancipated itself from theater, it repeatedly makes reference to it – be it by taking up theatrical motifs, in regard to the working method, or by falling back on tried and tested forms.

Since the 1970s, William Raban, one of the most famous filmmakers and artists of experimental cinema, has created an eclectic oeuvre that can be placed in the space of Expanded Cinema, structural film and experimental documentary. In 1976, his installation works were displayed by the International Forum of New Cinema; in 1979 he was once again represented in that section as a member of the London Filmmakers' Coop, with experimental works about the structural exploration of spatial patterns of perception.

His films unfurl a realm of experience that always challenges the viewer's perception and mental skills. By orbiting around recurring themes and motifs – life in London's East End and looming architectural changes in the urban landscape – Raban, whether with a a narration that is strictly structural, poetic or purely documentary-like, becomes a seismograph of political changes in the face of neo-capitalism. William Raban will be our guest on two evenings and will present works from the past three decades.

As in previous years, the Paris Goethe Institute is showing a selection of Forum titles. From April 13-15, Birgit Kohler will present five films from this year's programme: DEADWEIGHT by Axel Koenzen, DIE GETRÄUMTEN (THE DREAMED ONES) by Ruth Beckermann, RIO CORGO by Maya Cosa and Sergio da Costa, INERTIA by Idan Haguel and LANDSTÜCK (PIECE OF LAND) by Volker Koepp.

The selection is part of the programme "The Berlinale in Paris", which also presents a range of Panorama titles on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the the Teddy Award.